Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/78

 42 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE Empire, by the German tribes who formed states in the West; (4) early German literature, such as the poem Beo- wulf, the mythological Eddas of Iceland, the skaldic poetry of Norway, the sagas or prose histories, and the Nibelungen- lied. Unfortunately most of this literature was not written down until the twelfth century, and so must be used with caution as a source for the language, religion, and customs of the barbarian Germans of Roman times. The laws, too, though written down much sooner after the fall of Rome, are apt to show Teutonic customs considerably altered by lapse of time, Christian influence, contact with Roman civilization, and the altered circumstances under which the Germans were by then living. To sum up, our scanty sources about the early Germans are spread out thin over a period of some three thousand years, beginning with archaeological finds dating fifteen hundred years or so before Christ, and ending with poems and stories not set down in writing until nearly twelve hundred years after Christ. In the middle of this long dark road the little beacon of Tacitus sends forth a welcome light. The Germans belonged to the northern European race and to the Aryan or Indo-European linguistic group. Their The Ger- earliest home was, perhaps, the region about the hJTme and y west end of the Baltic Sea, where from about expansion 1500 to 500 B.C. archaeological evidence shows them to have been in the bronze age of civilization. Toward the close of this period they appear to have expanded south- east to the Vistula River and the Carpathian Mountains. They next came under the uplifting influence of the higher, iron-age type of civilization characteristic of the Celts to the southwest. Meanwhile the Germans were also advanc- ing in this southwestern direction, until they reached the Rhine and Main Rivers. A century before Christ two peo- ples called the "Cimbri" and "Teutones" entered Gaul and soon threatened Italy; but were finally annihilated by Roman armies, the Teutones in southern Gaul just as they were preparing to cross the Alps, and the Cimbri the follow- ing year just after they had crossed into northern Italy. By